Hermann Staudinger Biography, Life, Interesting Facts

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Hermann Staudinger was born on March 23rd, 1881. He was a famous German organic chemist who was bestowed with a Nobel Prize for demonstrating the existence of macromolecules. He was awarded the chemistry Nobel in 1953. Other discoveries that he made were of the Staudinger reaction and ketenes.

Early Life

Hermann Staudinger was born on March 23rd, in 1881. His place of birth was in Worms, Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. He was the son of Dr. Franz Gottfried and Auguste Staudinger. Staudinger had three brothers and one sister. His brothers were Hans Wilhelm Staudinger, Wilhelm Staudinger, and Karl August Friedrich Staudinger. His sister was called Luise Federn.

Hermann Staudinger went for his education in Worms. He later completed his college education in 1899. For a short period, he went to the University of Halle. After a short period, he transferred and enrolled in a technical school in Darmstadt. This was influenced by the fact that his father had been offered a job in Darmstadt. Later, he went for his higher education in Munich before later earning his Ph.D. degree from Halle University in 1903.

Career

Immediately after earning his Ph.D., he was employed at the University of Strasbourg. Here, he was under the guidance of Professor Johannes Thiele. Thiele was a celebrated German Chemist at the time. It was while working at the university that he discovered ketenes.

The Staudinger Reaction Discovery

In 1912, Hermann Staudinger got a new job at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology situated in Zurich, Switzerland. A few years later in 1919, he made the discovery that would later be identified as the Staudinger reaction.